Do they have a vaccine for a $50 million headache?

When Gov. Rick Perry’s office confirmed $50 million was going to the Texas A&M University System for a center meant to bridge the gap between the test tube and clinical trials for such medicines as cancer vaccines, it sounded interesting.

It has become more interesting every day.

Both last Friday and in formally announcing the grant Monday, Perry’s office said a 17-member panel recommends such grants from the Emerging Technology fund. It turns out the panel didn’t recommend this grant, which was paid for by tranferring money from another fund under Perry’s purview, the Enterprise Fund.

Perry spokeswoman Allison Castle said today that members of the advisory committee were briefed on the project, while also noting that their recommendation isn’t required for a grant and doesn’t guarantee a grant.

Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst and then-House Speaker Tom Craddick did sign off on the grant, as is required when money is dished out from either fund, Castle said.

The money was transferred between the two funds because of concern that taking the whole $50 million from the emerging technology fund would jeopardize other projects already in the pipeline, Castle said.

House Appropriations Committee Chairman Jim Pitts, R-Waxahachie, has taken a dim view of this transfer and says he doesn’t plan to allocate any additional money for funds overseen by the GOP governor unless such transfers are blocked.

There’s a sense that Perry, an Aggie, is favoring the A&M system and improperly using the Enterprise Fund money. Castle said $50 million was allocated to the University of Texas at Dallas in 2003 for a facility to increase science, engineering and math graduates. She said that decision was key in Texas Instruments’ later move to build a $3 billion wafer fabrication plant there.